


Until the Break of Day

by paintedrecs



Series: Then Fate O’errules [2]
Category: Gargoyles (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Compliant, F/M, Face-Fucking, Falling In Love, First Time Blow Jobs, Happy Ending, Light Bondage, M/M, Open Relationships, Pining, Unconventional Families, Weddings, Xanatos POV, bottom!Owen, break up make up, colleagues to friends to lovers, communication is important, demiromantic Owen, parenting, polyamorous Xanatos, top!Xanatos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:13:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22824670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paintedrecs/pseuds/paintedrecs
Summary: Owen was an entirely unexpected windfall—something that didn’t happen much anymore in Xanatos’s meticulously plotted life.Xanatos hardly noticed him at first. Owen had an unremarkable appearance: blond hair, wire-framed glasses, a face that would be difficult to pick out in a crowd, or even a boardroom. He faded into the background—intentionally, Xanatos realized, far later than he should have.It was unsettling to be so caught off guard. Unsettling and...intriguing.
Relationships: David Xanatos/Janine "Fox" Xanatos, Puck | Owen Burnett/David Xanatos
Series: Then Fate O’errules [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1640824
Comments: 38
Kudos: 63





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an unexpected sequel to [another unexpected fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22636003/chapters/54098671). Please read that one first, if you haven't already, since they interlock without strictly repeating content.
> 
> Both Owen/Xanatos and Fox/Xanatos are tagged as primary relationships, since Xanatos's POV means Fox is a lot more prevalent this time around: both in the story and in his life. The main focus of this fic is still on Owen/Xanatos - including any explicit scenes. (Note: While Xanatos, Owen, and Fox ultimately form a nontraditional family, there's no sexual or romantic trio.) One size definitely does not fit all when it comes to open relationships and/or polyamory; I've explored one version here, with all its complications and too-human flaws. ("Communication is Important" is pretty much my favorite fic tag, for so many reasons.)
> 
> Please enjoy, and thank you for accompanying me on this Gargoyles (without very many actual gargoyles) journey!

Love—and, more importantly, trust—had never come easily to David Xanatos.

He hated the seeming triteness of it: growing up with a hardworking fisherman father who spared him little attention and far less respect—for either his business ventures or himself. It was a backstory for a weaker man, one who _cared_ about what others thought of him, one who needed to lean on those around him rather than standing firmly planted on his own two, fully capable feet.

David Xanatos didn’t care for anyone or anything, beyond his own ambition. He had no intention of ever sinking his trust into any living being: he used them, and discarded them, and moved on.

And he certainly didn’t _need_ anyone: their support, their approval, their love. From the time that he was barely eight years old, he swore that he would never touch a penny of his father’s money, never let his father or anyone else attempt to take credit for his hard-earned success. He would be an entirely, unquestionably self-made man.

True to his word, Xanatos grew into the obscenely rich and powerful head of a cutthroat multinational corporation. He bore his father’s name and a burning desire to cement that name as his own, to strip the world free from any lingering memory of his father’s pitiful attempts at prosperity. The world would remember a Xanatos. But only one of them.

By the time he’d reached his 30s, Xanatos had accomplished nearly everything he’d set out to do—on the purely business front, anyway. He had his eye on a few more necessary takeovers—hostile or not, he didn’t particularly care—after which he’d turn his attention to his bigger, and far more ambitious, goals. “Impossible” was simply a word for men who didn’t have the confidence or money or willpower to get what they wanted.

And Xanatos always, _always_ got exactly what he wanted.

He met Fox at a Parisian gala: an event set up for the rich and powerful, as mind-numbingly dull as he’d grown to expect from that type of pretentiously limited guest list. It hadn't taken long for Xanatos to tire of interacting with people who presumed they were on his level, simply because they’d been born with unearned millions to their name.

Xanatos saw Fox from across the room—another story too ordinary, too expected for a man like him—but she was anything but ordinary.

His first impression—everyone’s first impression—would have focused on her beauty. And rightly so: Fox had red hair that sank past her shoulders in lush waves, and enticing curves set off by an emerald green dress that drew out the sparkle of her eyes and the heavy strands of jewelry around her milky white throat.

Xanatos made his way to her, working his way through a room thick with business partners, rivals, enemies, and nothing resembling friends. He didn’t need to greet her; his gaze instinctively followed her plunging neckline, sinking with deep satisfaction into the emerald-accented dip between the exquisite curves of her breasts.

When he lifted his eyes to hers, she raised an eyebrow and gave him, in turn, a very pointed and thorough once-over, lingering on the crotch of his impeccably tailored pants, for long enough to be certain he’d notice.

“David Xanatos,” Fox said, in a pleasantly husky voice. “I’ve heard of you. You’re trying to take over my father’s company.”

It was true; he’d spent years in a futile battle with Halcyon Renard, vainly attempting to drive his corporation into the ground, then buy it, then find a way to infiltrate it. He was thinking of that now, of course—business would always be foremost in his mind—but he was thinking of other things, too. Of the weight of Fox’s breasts in his hands when he inevitably freed her from that dress, letting it pool on the floor of his hotel room. How her voice would sound in the darkness: if she’d cry out, if her sharp nails would bite into his shoulders.

“How dull of you,” Fox said, under the bright cascading lights of the ballroom. “I’d heard many things about you, David Xanatos. But you’re the same as every other man here. You’re objectifying me.”

“You’re welcome to do the same to me,” Xanatos responded. He touched the silky red locks waving over her forehead—slowly, at first, to see if she’d let him. She stood still and simply watched him with intent, not quite curious eyes, as he pushed her hair to the side, then traced over just the edge of the tattoo encircling her right eye: stylized in the shape of a fox, in such a striking shade of blue that the ink was clearly new to her skin. Within the past few months, if his reports were accurate. And they always were.

“We can discuss it upstairs, if you’d like,” he told her, trailing the rough pads of his fingers down her cheek, to the softness of her throat, until, despite herself, she shivered. “Along with other things.”

“Such as?” she asked, although from her tone, he suspected she knew. That perhaps she’d expected this, too, when she’d accepted this event’s invitation.

“Your future,” Xanatos said, still touching her warm skin, still watching her reactions for any hint of resistance. Her eyelids fluttered, and he continued. “And your father’s business. I’ve heard he’s restructuring his holdings. Considering where best to sink his investment: with his wife, his partners, perhaps even his personal aide. Anyone who shows him the right amount of loyalty. Not his rebellious daughter, who seems intent on rejecting him.”

“Mmm,” Fox said, a low murmur caught somewhere between interest and offense. She moved Xanatos’s hand away—firmly but subtly enough to not draw anyone else’s attention—and scraped just the tips of her sharp red nails along his jaw, scratching pleasurably at his bearded skin. “It’s true, Daddy wasn’t pleased with my tattoo.”

“Or that week in Belgium. Or the business with the museum in Madrid.” Xanatos dipped his chin towards the biggest emerald in her necklace, one that had been recut recently, in a shape a little off its ideal, a few facets smaller than it should’ve been.

“A girl has needs,” she said, dropping her hand from his face but denying nothing.

“Oh, I’m certain a woman like you has plenty,” Xanatos replied. He stepped closer, enough to feel the warmth radiating between their bodies. “If you’d like to explore those...”

“You’re up to the challenge?” she filled in, lifting an eyebrow again.

“If you’d like to make it one,” he said.

“My father despises you,” Fox said, taking Xanatos by the hand.

Sleeping with Fox, and—eventually—even _marrying_ her, made good business sense. Love, or at least Xanatos’s willingness to recognize it as such, came much later.

***

Owen was an entirely unexpected windfall—something that didn’t happen much anymore in Xanatos’s meticulously plotted life.

Xanatos hardly noticed him at first. Owen had an unremarkable appearance: blond hair, wire-framed glasses, a face that would be difficult to pick out in a crowd, or even a boardroom. He faded into the background—intentionally, Xanatos realized, far later than he should have.

It was unsettling to be so caught off guard. Unsettling and...intriguing.

Their first exchange—as far as Xanatos could recall—took place in an elevator. He was fresh from another pointless attempt at negotiation with Renard and was seething with it; he stabbed impatiently at the buttons—ground floor, doors closed—in a fruitless attempt to speed his departure. The doors stayed open for a fraction longer, and another man stepped in.

“Mr. Xanatos,” he said, with a nod, and turned to face the elevator doors, which slid smoothly shut as though they’d been waiting for him.

It was coincidental timing, of course. Still, Xanatos gave the man beside him a first look, then a second.

“Owen Burnett, sir,” the man said, in response to a question Xanatos hadn’t asked.

His inflection was dry, with a slightly nasal quality, accented in a way that Xanatos, despite his extensive travels, couldn’t quite place. He puzzled at it, wondering why the man’s voice felt strangely pleasant, and somehow deeper than he’d expected.

Xanatos gave him a third, lingering look as the elevator descended, seeming to take far longer than it should. It was rare for him to spare anyone even a second glance, unless he already knew that he had need of them. But there was something about this man.

Blond hair, glasses over a sharp nose, thin lips pinched into an unamused line, a red tie knotted over a white shirt, and a crisply pressed suit that was tailored to fit his broad shoulders and narrow waist. He was carrying a briefcase with Renard’s initials stamped on the side: one of his assistants, then, someone Xanatos could now vaguely recall.

 _Ah_ , he thought, finally placing the dissonance in his memories. He’d seen this man before, yes, in passing, but less frequently than Halcyon Renard’s dour, dark-haired personal aide—an obsequious shadow by his side. “Has anyone ever told you, Owen,” he said conversationally, “that you look exactly like Preston Vogel.”

The corners of Owen’s mouth tipped up—so slightly that Xanatos hardly caught it. “People rarely notice, sir,” he said, in the same measured tone as before.

The elevator reached the ground floor—not having stopped anywhere along the way—and Owen stepped out, ahead of Xanatos.

“Good day, Mr. Xanatos,” he said.

Xanatos stood in the elevator until the doors began to close again; he slapped an open palm against a button that, this time, obeyed him. He watched Owen stride across the atrium, the flat heels of his polished dress shoes clicking against the marble. Xanatos didn’t move until Owen reached the glass doors at the entryway, until he disappeared into the sunlight.

***

“You want to work for Xanatos Enterprises.”

Across the wide expanse of Xanatos’s desk, Owen sedately adjusted his glasses, betraying no hint of nerves or intimidation. “I believe my cover letter states as much, sir.”

“And how do I know you’re not a spy, Owen,” Xanatos said.

There it was again—that almost smile, the unaccountably strange spark of amusement that Xanatos chased into Owen’s ice-blue eyes, then lost.

“I believe it would be foolish of Mr. Renard to send you a spy whom you’d met in his offices,” Owen replied.

“True,” Xanatos said. He steepled his hands under his chin and watched Owen, intently. He’d never spared much thought for his opponents’ staff—hardly for his own—but he’d caught himself thinking of Owen, more than once, over the past few weeks. “Tell me what you can do for me, Owen,” he said, not touching the resume sitting in front of him.

The more Owen spoke—short, to the point, and somehow always fascinating—the more Xanatos liked him. If nothing else, it would be a blow to Cyberbiotics; Owen was clearly far more capable than Vogel or anyone else in Renard’s employment. Poaching a star employee from his greatest rival would add another key player to Xanatos’s board, one he could easily find a use for. And Xanatos had always enjoyed winning.

“You’ll start tomorrow,” Xanatos decided, leaning back in his chair as he gazed thoughtfully at Owen. “And I’ll pay you five percent more than whatever you’re earning now.”

“Ten, sir,” Owen replied calmly. “And I believe it’s customary to give two weeks’ notice.”

“And let Renard try to steal you back? I hardly think so. Eight percent, and you start tomorrow, or not at all.”

“I look forward to working for you, Mr. Xanatos,” Owen said, sounding almost like he meant it.

***

“Remind me again, sir, why you felt the need to deposit us in the middle of a rainforest,” Owen said. Though he sounded distinctly put out, he was navigating through the thick vegetation with surprising ease, only the slight beads of sweat along his hairline betraying that he felt the stifling humidity.

For his part, Xanatos had spent the better part of the last hour not admitting how badly he missed the air conditioning they’d left behind for this expedition.

“Why do you ask questions you already know the answer to,” Xanatos said, a shade more irritably than Owen deserved. They were chasing down a lead that it had taken months to gain any traction on—until Owen had joined Xanatos’s household, and this project.

There were numerous legends—and far less concrete evidence—of an Elixir of Life that had been brewed, then lost, centuries ago, somewhere in the tangled labyrinth of this vast jungle. Owen had perused the thick sheaf of documents, pushed his glasses up the thin bridge of his nose, and asked if Xanatos had ever considered repurposing a satellite to scan the jungle for ruins.

 _It seems likely, sir, that whoever created this Elixir would have done so in a suitable setting. And its sudden loss may have been due to some sort of a natural disaster—an earthquake, perhaps, or a flood_ , he’d said, without directly stating that he found it strange Xanatos had never thought of such a simple way to narrow the search.

That had happened within a month of his employment, when Xanatos had still been unsure how much of his true inner workings he was willing to let Owen see. It’d taken another month and a half to gain access to an appropriate satellite, reprogram it to his specifications, and crosscheck the results against weather reports and local records. Owen had helped with that, too, immeasurably.

“Pardon me, sir,” Owen said, reaching over Xanatos’s head to knock away a thick vine that he’d nearly walked into face-first, distracted by his thoughts.

It was a considerate but completely unnecessary gesture; Xanatos began to say as much, still sweat-soaked and irritable, until he caught a closer look at the vine, which was now rapidly coiling into the overhanging branches. A snake—judging from the size of it, one that could have done considerable damage if it’d chosen to react negatively to Xanatos’s presence.

Owen simply loosened the top button of his shirt, baring a sliver of his pale throat, and carried on, casting a mildly questioning look over his shoulder when Xanatos didn’t immediately follow. It was, to be more accurate, _Xanatos’s_ shirt, and, he was noticing for the first time, it fit Owen surprisingly well.

Before they’d left the lodge that morning, Owen had appeared at Xanatos’s room with breakfast, a copy of the local newspaper, and his usual suit and tie. He’d apparently been simply planning to plunge into the jungle in a dress shirt and slacks and had, with considerable reluctance, agreed to wear some of Xanatos’s spares.

 _You’re the one who packed them; you may as well make use of them_ , Xanatos had said, ending the argument by tossing him a linen shirt and a lightweight pair of khaki pants. Owen had caught them with a disgruntled wrinkle of his nose but no further comment.

“Don’t you own any other clothes, Owen?” Xanatos asked now, resuming their path with a more careful eye on their surroundings.

“Perhaps if you paid me more, Mr. Xanatos,” Owen replied.

Xanatos let out a surprised huff of laughter, his increasingly sour mood finally beginning to lighten a little. Owen’s unruffled expression, of course, didn’t change in the slightest.

They trudged on, stopping after another hour for a packet of sandwiches that Owen withdrew from the bag he’d been carrying, sniffed at dubiously, but ate.

“Do you think we’re close, Owen?” Xanatos asked, wiping his arm across his forehead in a futile attempt to clear away the sweat dripping into his eyes. He’d stripped down to his undershirt, tiring of the relentless heat, but without a sleeve to wick away the moisture, all he could do now was smear one patch of damp, sticky skin against another.

“It should be another three miles at the most,” Owen said, then, “Permit me, sir.” He retrieved Xanatos’s discarded shirt from his pack and, rather than simply handing it to him, drew close enough to blot it carefully over Xanatos’s face, clearing the sweat—for the time being, at least—from his eyebrows, cheeks, his beard, down to his collarbones, the hollow of his throat...

Xanatos caught Owen’s wrist; he could feel a pulse throbbing, but couldn’t tell whether it was Owen’s veins, or the pulsing of his own heartbeat in his fingertips.

“Thank you, Owen,” he said. From this proximity, he could see Owen’s eyes more clearly: so much lighter than his own, the cool, restful shade of a winter sky.

“Will that be all, Mr. Xanatos?” Owen asked.

Realizing suddenly that he was still holding Owen’s wrist, Xanatos released it and cleared his throat. “Yes, of course, Owen. Three miles, you said? We should hurry, then; we’ll want to make it back before dark.”

***

Xanatos was unable to withhold a jaw-cracking yawn as he entered the breakfast room—much smaller and more intimate than his formal dining room, with the bonus of being warmly lit by the morning sun.

“Did you have a busy night, David?” Fox asked. Her bright red lips curved into a smirk over the edge of her coffee mug.

“I didn’t get much sleep,” he acknowledged, bending down to kiss her. She tasted like coffee, raspberries, and still a little like himself. “I’d missed you, my dear.”

“I missed you, too, David,” she said, the teasing glint in her eyes softening as she set down her mug to more thoroughly greet him, sliding her tongue into his mouth in a reminder of the night before, and a promise of the night to come.

They both traveled far too often to see each other as regularly as they liked; they’d consequently spent an indulgent evening—and much of the early morning hours—reuniting. Xanatos was, truth be told, thoroughly worn out.

“Breakfast,” he murmured tiredly after a bit, moving to the other end of the small table, which was set with an empty saucer and mug. “I’m starving. Where’s Owen?”

As if summoned, Owen appeared at Xanatos’s shoulder, silently setting a platter of steaming food in front of him: eggs, sausages, fresh fruit and berries, toast at exactly his preferred shade of burnt. Owen returned momentarily with a pot of hot tea, which he poured into Xanatos’s mug, mixing it with a quick swirl of cream that barely dampened its dark amber color.

“Thank you Owen,” Xanatos said, letting the tea cool while he spread a generous pat of butter over his toast. “Fox, have you come up with any new ideas since last night?”

The sparkle returned to Fox’s eyes; as much as he enjoyed that particular look, Xanatos was quick to head it off. “You know what I mean.”

He crunched his teeth through a slice of toast, his gaze drifting across the room, where Owen was setting the teapot on the sideboard, then tying the drapes back with thick lengths of cord to allow as much sunlight as possible to spill inside.

The toast was just how Xanatos liked it: crisp with a tender bite at the center, dry enough to need something to wash it down. He took a sip of his tea, then spluttered, nearly spitting it back into his cup.

“Owen,” he snapped. Owen’s head turned towards him, his expression blandly unconcerned. “You overbrewed the tea. What is this sludge, it’s undrinkable.”

“My sincere apologies, Mr. Xanatos,” Owen said.

He brought the teapot with him, and Xanatos watched with narrowed eyes as Owen emptied the cup into a nearby plant with a sharp flick of his wrist, then filled it nearly to the brim with cream before splashing the smallest of drops of tea into it.

“I hope this is more to your liking,” he said, then left the room, shutting the door behind him with a quiet but firm _click_.

“It’ll be less bitter, anyway,” Xanatos shrugged, chuckling and pushing the cup aside to focus on his eggs.

“I’m surprised you’d stand for that,” Fox said. She refilled her coffee from the carafe at her elbow, then speared a tender chunk of cantaloupe. “I’ve seen you fire a dozen men for much less.”

Fox was right; coming from anyone else, Xanatos would’ve considered that exchange, or even the unpalatable tea itself, grounds for immediate dismissal. There was no reason to do otherwise; he’d always stood by his ironclad belief that everyone was replaceable. But...

“It’s not insubordination. It’s just Owen. He’s still angry with me because I ignored his advice yesterday and botched that deal with GenuCorp.”

He smiled again at the memory: how Owen’s eyes had sparked in anger, his words crackling with cold fury as he snapped his phone shut. After all these years, Xanatos had finally found someone who hated losing even more than he did. In this case, Xanatos wasn’t overly concerned about the temporary setback; he still held most of the cards and could afford to wait a bit for a fresh attempt. GenuCorp was the least of his current worries.

“How long has he been with you? Four months?”

“Just about—the week after next. Feels like longer.”

“Hm,” Fox said, then at the questioning lift of his eyebrows, shook her head, her red hair swaying in hypnotic waves. “You wanted to talk about the show.”

“Is it something you’re interested in?” Xanatos asked. He nearly took another sip of his tea before remembering with a grimace. He slid Fox’s mug across the table instead, smirking when she didn’t protest. “Your father won’t like it.”

“Daddy gave up on me a long time ago,” she replied. She didn’t seem bothered by it; although Xanatos had always suspected there was more pull to that relationship than she let on, he didn’t press.

“Ideas on casting, then? And the name: I was thinking of The Pack, with you at the center.”

“The crafty leader,” Fox said, with a pleased curve to her mouth. “So we’ll name the rest in kind. I have a few ideas.”

“I’ll hire trainers,” Xanatos said, tapping his fingers against the tabletop as he thought, his plans darting a hundred steps ahead. “Hand-to-hand combat, weaponry. I’d prefer to avoid stunt doubles; we’ll want as much realism as possible.”

“Because if it’s on television, it’s true,” Fox murmured. “I’d prefer to design my own costume.”

“Of course,” Xanatos said. She reached to take her coffee back from him; he lifted her hand to his lips in a light kiss before she withdrew it, along with her recovered prize. “Don’t you know a judo expert we could enlist? That man you met in Istanbul, what was his name...”

“No,” Fox said. “I slept with him, David. Unlike you, I think it’s always wise to not blur those boundaries; I can’t have a relationship with someone I work with.”

Xanatos frowned; she hadn’t said it as though she meant to be cutting, but it was an oddly inaccurate statement. They’d had an understanding from the start that theirs wasn’t an exclusive arrangement and had both taken advantage of that freedom over the past few years. They typically didn’t share details—not that there was usually much of particular interest. Still, they always knew the basics. When, where. Who, and how often.

Fox maintained a string of two or three men she periodically reconnected with— _they know how to please me_ , she’d said, returning from trips overseas looking relaxed and satiated—but none of them carried a deeper entanglement. And Xanatos, beyond never spending more than one night with a single individual, had certainly never debased himself with a member of his staff.

“I don’t know who you think I—” he began, cutting himself short when Owen reentered the room.

Owen set a newspaper and a slim manila folder on the table, tapping the latter with one finger before beginning to clear away the dishes. “The morning’s numbers,” he said. “I’d suggest selling your Veris Industries stocks as soon as possible.”

“You think they’re about to crash?” Xanatos asked. He forked the last bite from his plate; Owen held it steady for him, then stacked it with Fox’s.

“They will if the market takes your actions as a signal,” Owen said.

Xanatos made an impressed noise. “Then we can snatch up the rest while Veris is scrambling to recover. And with half his board golfing in the Caymans, the timing’s perfect. Go ahead, Owen, I trust you to sort out the details. I’d like to get that underway by...” He glanced down at his bulky wristwatch, calculating the time zones.

“Within the next two hours, I’d expect,” Owen said. He poured Xanatos’s untouched tea into the same potted fern as before and finished balancing the trays. “Veris is scheduled to land in Zurich by three.”

Xanatos’s eyes crinkled. “And he’s been too cheap to install a phone in his jet. He’ll regret that.”

“Indeed, sir,” Owen said.

Xanatos watched him as he left, both trays effortlessly balanced along one suit-clad arm as he quietly opened and closed the door.

“I forgot what we were discussing,” he said eventually, turning back to Fox.

“I know,” she said. “It doesn’t matter, David. If you have Owen start setting up the shell company now, we should have everything underway to start filming by...February, I think. We can negotiate a slot in prime time for the Fall.”

“Preferences on the name?”

“For the company? Why not...” She drummed her sharp fingernails across the table, her lips pursing into a plush, thoughtful pout. “Let’s keep it simple. Pack Media Studios.”

“I’ll have Owen start scouting out locations,” Xanatos said. He didn’t bother to open the folder yet, or the paper; if there’d been anything else important, Owen would’ve told him. “Unless you have something in mind.”

“I might,” Fox said. “Something in the warehouse district—enough space for the studio itself, and training rooms. A lab, too; I’d like to experiment with the technical capabilities of the suits.”

They stood up from the table; Xanatos wrapped his hands around her slim waist, gazing down into her face, which was lifted to his affectionately. “Are you ready to become a superhero, my dear?”

“I think I was born for that,” she said, before lifting to her toes to kiss him.


	2. Chapter 2

Owen was a surprise. Puck was, somehow, less so.

Xanatos hadn’t suspected anything—at least, not along these lines—but it almost seemed inevitable when Owen pocketed his glasses, when his body blurred in a dizzying swirl of unearthly green light, when Xanatos had to drop his eyeline a good ten inches lower than usual to meet Owen’s.

Puck’s, he mentally corrected, then...no. It was still Owen standing in front of him. Shorter, with a slighter blind, sharply pointed oversized ears, and a cascading stream of hair such a pure shade of white it seemed to be emitting its own light—but underneath it all, Xanatos could still see the man who brought him breakfast every morning, whose understated, snidely intelligent sense of humor had made him laugh only moments earlier.

Who was apparently one of the most powerful beings in the universe.

“You can grant me anything I ask?” Xanatos asked. The temptation was immense; he could tell Owen knew it.

Xanatos had spent close to three decades building an empire—from his first literal lemonade stand to the favorable negotiation he’d closed with the Costa Rican ambassador in Limon, ten days ago. He’d been alone for the first. And for the second...

He looked at Owen: the familiar sharp cut of his jaw; the blue eyes that, though filled with more overt mischief now, had always pierced right through him.

“You said there were two options. What’s the other?”

The choice was an obvious one. Xanatos could, with a carefully worded wish—and he knew how to manipulate contracts better than anyone—gain immortality for himself and Fox. It was all he’d ever wanted. His dreams, all the intricately mapped out plans he’d developed over his lifetime, were within moments of springing from heady ambition into reality.

Owen expected that outcome. Xanatos could see the inevitability written across his face.

But Xanatos hesitated, for perhaps the first time in his life.

Why _wouldn’t_ he take the deal? He balked at the first answer; the second was easier to accept.

Maybe there was more to gain from keeping Owen at his side. In a wholly practical sense, of course; even if he couldn’t make use of Puck’s powers, wasn’t it smarter to keep a being of such pure magic tied to you, if you could? Xanatos sifted through every legend he’d read, every warning about the fae, even the ones that, he was realizing now, had come from Owen.

Service for a lifetime could end in a day, if the one you made the bargain with twisted the rules. If your attempts to out-trick the trickster failed.

Xanatos rested his chin on his folded hands, his gaze fixed on Owen, as it so often was lately. The rest didn’t matter: the bright clothing; the slim figure that periodically darted and spun in the air like a dolphin while he waited for an answer; the wide mouth spread into a toothy, not quite sincere grin.

The eyes that met his were the same as they’d ever been. They were steady—as constant and reliable as the pumping of Xanatos’s blood through his veins. The next recognition was inevitable, then: both sudden and something he should’ve known all along. He trusted Owen with his life.

And after all, what was the use of immortality, if in the process you lost everyone you...

Xanatos cut that thought short, focusing on what he’d envisioned for his future, on what that would look like, depending upon the decision he made now. Despite his best attempts, his thoughts kept bending backward instead, slipping into the past.

He thought about Owen.

***

Barely a month earlier, they’d been chasing a druid through a seemingly endless series of Irish bogs. This time, Owen had shown up wearing the appropriate attire, along with a thoroughly unamused expression at being roped into what he had deemed a pointless pursuit.

“As I’ve mentioned before, Mr. Xanatos, there have been thousands of druids in Ireland,” he’d said, stepping carefully across the peat moss, which squelched overfoot but held firm. “If you’re only counting the ones with actual power. Most of them could hardly summon a cat from their own yard. Can you point me again to the evidence, sir, that proves this _particular_ druid has the capacity to—”

“Owen,” Xanatos had said, waving away the unwanted skepticism. “Why don’t you just trust me, for once?”

Owen had lifted his chin: his eyes were steely, his voice flat, as he replied, “I trust you, Mr. Xanatos. What I don’t trust are your sources.”

Nevertheless, he’d trudged along silently for a while, occasionally pulling out his phone to frown at it, as though he was irritated with the lack of signal, or perhaps longing for a call important enough to summon them back home.

“Isn’t it beautiful, Owen?” Xanatos had said when they’d finally left the majority of the peat fields behind, cresting a softly rolling hill that brought them within sight of their destination: an ancient oak grove the druid had been rumored to frequent.

Owen had said nothing, but he’d stopped at Xanatos’s side, their shoulders nearly brushing. Together, they’d looked down at the valley, crossed by networks of thin streams that kept it lush and almost impossibly green. There was something about it that reminded Xanatos of a circuit board: beautiful in its complexity, with a strange order to its seeming chaos. It was a thought he would’ve ordinarily kept to himself; when he spoke it aloud, Owen simply nodded.

“Humans always attempt to control what they don’t understand,” he’d said, his voice a little more distant than usual, some of the roundness dropped from his vowels. “Progress comes when, instead of breaking the world around you, you harness what’s already there.”

Behind his glasses, Owen’s eyes were the blue of the sky arcing endlessly above them, another impossible shade that no photos could ever fully capture. _Beautiful_ , Xanatos had thought for the second time in as many minutes, wondering how he’d never seen it before.

Down in the valley, they’d discovered a fresh morass of uneven footing that, on occasion, had made even Owen stumble.

“Careful, sir,” he’d said after catching himself with a reluctant hand on Xanatos’s arm, quickly withdrawn.

Xanatos had withheld his chuckle, knowing Owen would resent it. “Thank you, Owen,” he’d said instead, taking care to steer them to firmer ground.

Unfortunately, that hadn’t lasted; Owen had been a few steps ahead of Xanatos at one point, navigating a low swell of land that, as it turned out, sheltered a hidden stream. Owen’s footing went abruptly out from under him; he’d twisted, mid-fall, enough for Xanatos to catch a glimpse of his stricken face before he’d disappeared with something that sounded suspiciously like a yelp. A noise that Xanatos was certain Owen would never, under pain of torture, admit to having uttered.

Xanatos had scrambled closer, keeping a lower center of gravity to avoid meeting the same fate, only to find Owen entirely unharmed but looking extraordinarily like a very wet and sulky cat. He was sitting waist-deep in a clover-thick hollow, water flattening his hair to his skull and dripping down his face in steady rivulets.

“You should watch your step here, Mr. Xanatos,” he’d said, as calmly as if they were entering a boardroom with a raised lip in the doorway, and Xanatos hadn’t been able to stop himself: he’d laughed—so hard that his vision had blurred with something like tears for a moment, and he’d very nearly slipped down the bank as a result.

“Owen,” he’d said finally, barely able to get more words out without falling helplessly into laughter again. “Are you okay? Can you stand?”

“I’m quite alright, Mr. Xanatos,” Owen had responded irritably. He’d stood, gingerly, his feet sliding a few more times in the process, his set jawline signaling that he had absolutely no intention of taking Xanatos’s outstretched hand.

Once he’d made it to his feet, both of them safely across the stream, Owen had removed his water-spattered glasses, then replaced them, still badly smeared, after a futile attempt to find a sufficiently dry patch on his clothing.

“I’m afraid this may make the rest of the walk rather unpleasant, Mr. Xanatos,” he’d said. As if to demonstrate, he’d taken a few soggy steps forward, his wet socks squeaking badly inside his shoes. He’d still looked exceptionally grumpy but was clearly determined to continue to their destination.

“This way, Owen,” Xanatos had said.

Owen had frowned, taking a quick glance at the sky, with his usual uncanny ability to navigate without the use of a compass. “The grove is to the north,” he’d said. It was out of sight again; they’d need to cross at least one more hill before reaching it.

“But there’s smoke in that direction.” Xanatos had pointed to their right, where a thin grey coil was rising lazily into the sky. “We should get you out of those clothes, Owen. You’ll catch a cold, or worse.”

It’d taken them under twenty minutes to reach their destination, with Xanatos keeping a much closer eye on their surroundings, and on Owen’s deeply resigned expression.

The house was more of a low-slung cottage, featuring a thatched roof and an impressively stocked garden on three sides. Xanatos had been able to pick out a surprising assortment of hearty-looking vegetables, along with a number of herbs that he couldn’t name. He’d resolved to ask Owen later. For the time being, it was more important to get him inside.

“Convenient,” he’d said, pointing out the hand-printed sign in the front window, which announced: _Rooms available, meals provided_. “We’ve found ourselves a bed and breakfast, Owen.”

“Remarkably convenient,” Owen had agreed, his eyes narrowing as though he’d wished to say more.

A woman had opened the door after Xanatos’s third knock. “Yes?” she’d asked, her willowy body blocking the doorway. She was perhaps a decade older than Xanatos and strikingly pretty: dark skin, green-gold eyes, and a mass of curly black hair that was streaked with grey.

“We’re travelers,” Xanatos had said. “In need of some shelter, and a fire. My—” He’d stopped, suddenly unsure how to define what Owen was to him. “There was an incident with a stream. As you can see, he’s in need of dry clothes, or at least a blanket, if you can spare one.”

The woman had looked between them for a few long moments before stepping away from the door, clearing a path. “Come in,” she’d said.

Owen had carefully scraped his shoes against the rush-woven doormat before removing them, along with his sodden socks. Xanatos had done the same when he saw the woman’s tightly-pressed lips loosen a fraction in approval.

“Here,” she’d said, handing Owen a folded stack of men’s clothes. “You can keep them; they belonged to someone I loved once, and lost. I have no need of them now.”

When Owen had followed the woman’s directions to a room in the back of the cottage, she’d turned to Xanatos, her eyes piercing, her body almost seeming to crackle with strange energy. An effect from the sudden oncoming storm; the sky had begun darkening to grey, with clouds billowing along the horizon. “There’s more to him than you think,” she’d said, in a low voice, almost a warning. “He’s not like other men.”

“I know,” Xanatos had replied, not pausing to wonder how she’d seen it so quickly; after all, hadn’t it been the same for him?

“Do you,” the woman had said. A thoughtful line had pinched between her eyebrows, her gaze carefully scanning his face, then flicking to the empty hallway, before her expression softened into a smile. “Ah,” she’d said, eventually, far warmer than before, sounding as though she understood something Xanatos did not. “In that case, my name is Dearbhail, and you are both welcome to rest here for the night. You have a long road home.”

She’d busied herself at the stove, chopping vegetables and herbs for a stew, while Xanatos stoked the fire, waiting for Owen’s return.

“Here,” he’d said when Owen reappeared, standing up from his seat and gesturing Owen into it.

Owen had changed into a thick woolen sweater—clearly well-worn in years past, stretched at the shoulders and dipping loosely along his collarbones. His borrowed pants stopped just short of his ankles, baring pale skin and a bone structure that was, somehow, more delicate than Xanatos had expected.

“Here,” Xanatos had said again, a little more softly than was needed, taking a towel from a nearby ottoman and stepping between Owen’s spread knees to sponge the remaining dampness from his still-dripping hair, from skin that was flushed red from the chill.

“Sir,” Owen had objected, drawing as far back in the padded armchair as he could. “I’m quite capable of—”

“Hush, Owen,” Xanatos had said. He’d removed Owen’s glasses, carefully, setting them aside. “Let me do this. It’s my fault you were out there.”

Owen had let Xanatos touch him, then, through the soft texture of the towel. He’d watched, with parted lips, his eyebrows drawn down slightly, his eyes darting across Xanatos’s face, as Xanatos had focused on removing all remaining traces of the bog.

“There,” Xanatos had said, stepping back when he was satisfied. “Can’t have you claiming any sick days after this trip, Owen.”

“Of course not, Mr. Xanatos,” Owen had replied. Without the shield of his glasses, his eyes were difficult to look away from.

Xanatos had managed it; had thanked Dearbhail for the towel, for the steaming, deliciously scented bowls she brought to them.

After dinner, Owen had collected the dishes, dipping his head in respect at Dearbhail’s thanks. “You should tell him who you are,” he’d said.

“Should I,” she’d replied, with an odd inflection to the words, but hadn’t spoken further until Owen had gone to the sink, twisting the tap to a low volume.

“You claim to be travelers. In a place this remote, what did you expect to find?”

“You,” Xanatos had replied, suddenly realizing the truth. It wasn’t surprising that Owen had noticed first; Xanatos had been distracted, not paying close enough attention to the signs. “You’re the druid.”

Dearbhail had shrugged. “I’m called many things. But I don’t have what you seek.”

As Owen had insisted from the start, she didn’t possess the kind of power they needed; few on this earth did, she’d said, her gaze drifting to Owen, who’d begun meticulously mopping the smoothly polished countertop, his back to them. But she knew of a book that might help, if they could find it. A Grimorum. The most powerful collection of spells the human world had seen.

In the morning, she’d followed Xanatos outside, where he’d gone to breathe the rain-cleared air while Owen was gathering their things.

“I lost someone I loved, once,” she’d said. “Thanks to my pride. Fate can be a tricky thing, David Xanatos. Remember that.”

***

In the end, there was only one choice.

And Xanatos made it.

***

“You’re missing Owen.”

Xanatos very nearly startled at the sound of Fox’s voice, although he’d been expecting her. “No,” he said, automatically, then, with far more honesty, “You look beautiful.”

“I know,” Fox said. “But you can tell me again if you’d like.”

Rather than joining him at the edge of the roof, she stopped at the pool, slipping her cover up—all lace and sheer paneling—off her slim shoulders, revealing a black bikini that cut low across her hips and barely contained the tempting swell of her breasts. She dipped a toe into the water, testing it—heated, as they’d asked.

“You’ve been quiet all day, David,” she said. “Since Owen left, really. When was that, Tuesday?”

“Monday,” Xanatos corrected almost before she’d finished speaking, neatly falling into the trap she’d set for him.

“I used to wonder how to think of Owen,” Fox said. In a movement that was almost liquid in its grace, she sat down, sliding her athletically toned legs into the clear water.

“What do you mean?” Xanatos mirrored her actions—less smoothly, although she watched him as closely—across the width of the pool. The rooftop of his newly launched conference center was quiet, lifted above the Parisian lights, but it had none of the relaxation that came from being at home. He was restless, maybe even the slightest touch homesick; that was all.

“He works for you, but it’s always been more than that. I was never sure if he was your butler, or your best friend.”

Xanatos didn’t see room for a reply; the truth was, he hardly knew, either. Owen was irreplaceable. Defining him past that? Xanatos hadn’t tried.

“Do you know what the strangest thing is? He’s been with you for nearly three years, and I don’t remember ever seeing him take a vacation. Even now, while we’re taking a few extra days here, he’s back in Manhattan running your businesses. It’s as though...” Fox trailed off, leaning back on her hands, her body forming an even more appealing, and currently unintentional, set of curves.

Needing to do something to shield the sudden spiking of his nerves, Xanatos pushed himself the rest of the way into the pool, his feet easily touching the bottom. She’d never guess at the truth—she couldn’t. Sharing your home with the fae wasn’t something that came up in general conversation. And while he was sure Fox could be trusted with the information, Owen’s secret wasn’t his to share.

“I’d assumed you would’ve done something about it a long time ago,” Fox continued eventually, letting go of whatever thought she’d been toying with. “Sleeping with him, obviously. Although at this point, it’s even more obvious you’d want more than that. I still don’t know why you haven’t made a move.”

His first response was an instinctive one that he narrowly withheld. He should scoff at the idea. Sex? With Owen?

It was...a thought he’d filed away in a back corner of his mind years ago, knowing he couldn’t have.

“Please don’t try to deny it, David. You know I’m not stupid.”

Fox was as brilliant and ruthless as she was beautiful; those, along with their searing physical and intellectual chemistry, were some of the many things Xanatos appreciated about her. And he loved her, of course...as much as a man like him could. But this was something he didn’t know how to talk about. It was the first time in years of their relationship that Fox had broached anything close to the subject.

Xanatos had occasional trysts on his travels, as did she, and neither of them bothered to discuss the specifics. It wasn’t as though it ever mattered enough to change anything between the two of them. After all, how could it possibly impact their relationship if he’d had sex with...Xanatos racked his brain, unable to finish the thought. He frowned at the effort, then down at the rippling water around Fox’s calves; she was kicking her feet lightly, waiting for him to process whatever he was working through. It was something else years of familiarity had made them learn about each other.

The truth was, Xanatos couldn’t easily pick out a name for an example. He could barely remember the last time he’d slept with someone other than Fox. There’d been opportunities. He hadn’t been interested.

Copenhagen, he thought, finally. There’d been that duchess, in the hotel. Blonde hair, light eyes, creamy white skin: bland, really, but eager enough in bed, and it’d been weeks since he and Fox had managed to be on the same continent for any reasonable length of time.

Afterwards, Xanatos had slept longer than he’d meant to; his schedule had been packed full, his brain so stuffed with numbers and corporate juggling acts that he’d badly needed the release. When he’d seen the duchess to the door, irritated that she’d stayed past daybreak, Owen had been there.

He was standing in the tastefully carpeted hallway, one hand lifted to the door for his usual cursory knock, the other holding a newspaper and a tray of tea and pastries.

 _Your grace_ , he’d said after the briefest pause, bowing slightly as the duchess had slipped by him, her hair a mess of tangles, her elaborate gown an obvious remnant from the previous night’s ball.

Owen’s mouth had flattened in distaste as he’d handed the tray over. His greeting, and his subsequent departure, had been coldly dismissive, as though what Xanatos had done was ultimately far beneath his notice.

For the first time since he was approximately five years old, Xanatos had felt small.

He couldn’t explain why, but the feeling had stayed with him all day, and through the entirety of their plane ride home. Owen had spoken in perfectly polite, clipped tones, offering nothing beyond what was required of him.

It’d taken just under three days for their interactions to return to normal. Xanatos had loathed every second of it.

In the past, Xanatos had folded those kinds of evenings into the rest of his schedule, expecting his assistants, however long they lasted, to arrange his time how it best suited him. He’d never asked that of Owen. And after Owen had joined Xanatos Enterprises, there’d been fewer and fewer of those nights, anyway, until it had hardly seemed of note at all.

That change hadn’t been intentional. It was just that when Xanatos wanted that kind of closeness, the feel of someone else’s body under his, it’d been harder to picture anything other than luxuriant red tresses, or...

He took in a deep breath and sank under the surface, reemerging with a heave of his shoulders and, after pulling his wet hair loose from its tie, an energetic shake that splattered water well across the pool.

Fox laughed in sharp surprise, then joined him. Xanatos caught her by the waist and held her to him. She went willingly.

“I’m not trying to deny anything,” he said. “I thought we’d agreed to keep that part of our lives separate.”

“Sex, yes,” Fox said. “I don’t care who’s in your bed, David. I do need to know if you’re going to start another relationship.”

It would’ve been easy to lie. To Fox, and even to himself. Xanatos stroked her hair out of her face, touching his thumb to her tattoo. “That won’t happen,” he assured her.

Fox lifted a skeptical eyebrow.

She thought, wrongly, that he was still deflecting. Maybe a part of him was. The rest was finally ready to acknowledge some substance of the truth. “It won’t happen,” he said, “because the only person, other than you, who I’d want that with isn’t a possibility.”

Fox made a thoughtful noise, her eyes searching his. Once she’d found whatever she’d wanted, she scraped her fingernails soothingly along his beard. “Oh, David,” she said, hardly needing to say more; the softness of his name was enough. “If you ever do tell Owen—it’ll be okay with me. It’ll make things more complicated, but when has that ever stopped us?”

Xanatos kissed her: in gratitude, with a swelling of affection and a desperate need to move on from a conversation he’d never expected to have. After a while, they moved to the edge of the pool; he pressed Fox against it, enjoying the soft yield of her body. With an easy, practiced pinch of his fingers against fabric-lined hooks, he freed her breasts, then lowered his mouth to them, focusing on the responsive hitch in her breathing, the familiar taste of her skin.

And, for a time, he was able to keep his thoughts free of anything else.


	3. Chapter 3

Four years. Four years of repressed longing, of Xanatos knowing that there was one thing in the universe that was entirely outside of his grasp. One person he could never touch.

And then, late one night, so unexpectedly it seemed at first like Xanatos’s imagination had conjured him, Owen showed up at his bedroom door, finally offering himself...but not in any way Xanatos had dreamed.

He was angry, at first, a response that covered a well of hurt, of disappointment. If Owen didn’t understand by now that Xanatos would’ve been able to recognize him no matter his form, to see _his_ true face behind the veil of Fox’s that he was wearing...it made Xanatos aggressive, biting at Owen’s familiar-but-wrong mouth, digging harsh fingers into skin that was too soft, too smooth. Just to feel _something_ other than the bottom dropping out of his heart, to _prove_ to Owen that...that...

Through Fox’s eyes, Owen looked startled. Unhappy.

Abruptly, Xanatos let him go.

He knew Owen hadn’t been trying to trick him. He’d meant it as some sort of strange kindness, an opportunity for Xanatos to ease his loneliness while Fox was imprisoned. He had no way of knowing that he was instead tearing Xanatos’s heart out of his chest.

Xanatos surprised himself by taking that heart in his hands for just long enough to ask if Owen would stay—as _himself_ , the man Xanatos had been aching futilely after for so long. Owen surprised him far more by tucking it safely back in place, sealing the wound into something more like a scar. He agreed. He stayed. He...he wanted it, too, Xanatos marveled, as he touched and kissed and fucked a body that was more responsive than he could’ve ever imagined.

Xanatos made it as good as he could, lasting as long as he could possibly manage, in hopes that Owen would want him again. That he’d return to him, that he’d let Xanatos stroke awestruck hands down his chest, his thighs, his cock. That he’d let Xanatos show how much he’d _needed_ Owen like this, with him, for an eternity if all went his way.

The next morning, everything seemed back to normal. Owen wasn’t particularly cool or distant—though he was walking a little more stiffly than usual when he entered the library, there was nothing to signify that he carried any regret for their actions. But he was simply...Owen. Polished, professional, asking Xanatos if he planned to visit the prison later, efficiently stacking books to the side to make room for Xanatos’s breakfast, and showing no sign that he was eager to pick up where they’d left off.

Xanatos wanted to sweep the table clear and fuck Owen across it, or against the stacks of books lining the room, until Owen’s fingers scrabbled against brittle spines, knocking ancient, irreplaceable volumes free of their shelves.

He _wanted_ Owen, with what felt like every fiber of his being. And Owen simply handed him his newspaper, a manila folder filled with whatever discoveries he’d made that morning, and a generously buttered English Muffin alongside a cup of tea that’d been brewed exactly as Xanatos liked.

So that was it, then. A single night that was more than Xanatos had ever expected to have, anyway.

***

Much later that evening, there was a quiet, businesslike rap on Xanatos’s bedroom door. When he opened it, Owen was standing outside, looking the same as always. Suit, tie, meticulously polished shoes. He cleared his throat, very slightly, and held out a box.

“The condoms you requested, Mr. Xanatos,” he said, matter-of-factly.

Somehow, Xanatos hadn’t been watching him closely enough. Owen’s pale skin was flushed, high on his cheekbones. Although his eyes still met Xanatos’s, there was a hint of uncertainty in them. Despite everything they’d done last night, he didn’t seem sure he’d be welcome.

Xanatos let go of his tight grip on the doorframe. He stepped backwards, gaze fixed on Owen, halting where he knew the light from his lamp would splash across his bare chest, shadowing his hips, the loosely cinched pants he was pushing down, now, slowly.

“Why don’t you help me try them on, Owen, to see if they fit.”

“I believe I gathered a fairly accurate impression of the size last night, Mr. Xanatos,” Owen said. 

It was enough, though, for him to make his decision. He closed the door behind him, then, after a split second’s pause, locked it. As though there was anyone else in the building to disturb them.

Everything went much the same as before: Owen, spread out underneath him, his mouth parted wetly, every response eager, unpracticed. This time Xanatos let his hips snap harder, faster, their skin slapping together, his cock pistoning inside of Owen until Owen’s face twisted into agonized pleasure.

He slowed, then, to a tempo closer to his original pace, still wanting it to last. Still wanting— _needing_ —Owen to enjoy it. Wanting him to return.

During daylight hours, Owen treated Xanatos as he always had, sliding into mild irritation at what he deemed unreasonable aspects of their plans, then helping to shape them into something attainable. They built the first Coyote prototype: a failure, but one they could learn from. They checked in regularly with Dr. Sevarius, confirming that the cloning was going well. Soon, Xanatos would be in possession of a version of Goliath who was unquestionably loyal to him, who had the gargoyle’s strength but none of his infuriating gallantry.

And at night, Owen came to Xanatos’s room. He let Xanatos undress him; pushed their bodies together until Xanatos could hardly breathe; gripped at him so tightly, Xanatos sometimes wondered how he hadn’t left bruises.

Though there were no physical marks left on him, Xanatos felt strangely wounded, sometimes, when he woke alone, sunlight seeping through the gaps in his heavy curtains.

Owen never stayed the night. They didn’t talk about it.

A little while into their unspoken arrangement, Xanatos drew back from Owen’s eager mouth, setting firm hands on Owen’s shoulders to prevent him from following. He chuckled at the annoyed look that crossed Owen’s face; as much as Xanatos loved the press of welcoming lips against his, the aggressive sweep of a tongue into his mouth, Owen almost seemed starved for it, sometimes.

“I’d like to try something else,” Xanatos said. “If you’re up for it.”

Arranging their bodies took some coordination; it was awkward, at first, until they’d eased into a new sense of comfort. Xanatos took his time propping Owen’s head up just enough against the pillows they’d tossed aside earlier; he set his knees on either side of Owen’s chest, his thighs protesting at the unusually wide stretch, until Owen stroked at the quivering muscles, lifting his shoulders off the bed to kiss the crease of Xanatos’s hip.

“You can move up more, Mr. Xanatos,” he said.

To make room for both their bodies—taller, broader, than Xanatos was used to—they had to move themselves towards the foot of the bed, rearranging Owen and the pillows until Xanatos was straddling his face instead, Owen’s hands anchored now against the backs of Xanatos’s thighs as he opened his mouth willingly. Xanatos took himself in one hand, bringing himself back to full hardness with a few strokes. He took this slowly, too, first rubbing the tip of his cock against Owen’s cheek, then against the corner of his mouth, until Owen’s eyes began to narrow in frustration.

Xanatos groaned when he finally pushed himself inside; Owen’s mouth was warm, wet, and...he hissed, suddenly, his hips twitching backwards.

“Your teeth, Owen,” he growled.

It was enough instruction; Owen was more careful from there, and Xanatos rose to his knees, curving his torso over Owen’s face, feeling the edge of Owen’s hairline tickling his abdomen as he braced himself with both palms against the mattress, high above Owen's head. It wasn’t the easiest position to maintain, but he liked it for the control it gave him—the ability to set whatever pace he wanted.

Xanatos lifted himself up a little more, keeping one hand firmly planted for leverage, then moving the other back down to Owen’s jaw, thumbing over the bulge of his cock in Owen’s cheek.

He angled his hips forward and groaned in heady pleasure at the sensation. Owen’s mouth was sloppy, with not enough suction and still a little too much teeth; he seemed to have absolutely no idea what to do with his tongue. In anyone else, it would’ve been unpleasant, but it was Owen’s mouth, Owen’s inept tongue: it still felt good enough for Xanatos to push in deeper, feeling Owen’s nose digging into the hair above his cock, then pull back before driving forward again, and again...until Owen choked, deeply, gagging and coughing once Xanatos’s cock popped free, coated in stringy spit.

“Owen,” Xanatos said, shifting back onto his haunches so he could lift Owen’s shoulders off the bed and cup the sides of his face, making sure he was okay.

“My apologies, Mr. Xanatos,” Owen wheezed, after a bit, the corners of his eyes still wet with unwilling tears, his chest still heaving, face flushed red.

“Owen,” Xanatos said again, sliding down his body so he could better kiss him, sweeping his taste out of Owen’s mouth, until it was just them again: their lips, their tongues, in a rhythm that Owen understood.

“I’ve finally found the one thing you’re not good at, Owen,” he said eventually, once everything between them had begun to return to normal.

Owen’s eyes sparked dangerously. “Forgive me, Mr. Xanatos,” he snarled, “for not having the _years_ of experience you clearly expect from your partners. I assure you that I—”

He huffed, still angrily, when Xanatos kissed him silent.

“That’s not what I meant, Owen,” Xanatos said, touching Owen’s sharp, fiercely set jawline. He loved teasing Owen, drawing that haughty irritation out of him. He also knew that he occasionally pushed too far, hurting the feelings he increasingly wished to protect. He pressed apologetic lips against Owen’s throat, still a splotchy red. “I’m sorry. It was my fault, for not being sure you were ready.”

Owen yielded to him after a few more kisses—not soft, Xanatos couldn’t quite manage that, but with as much unspoken affection as he could pour into them.

“I’m ready to try again,” Owen said, his jaw tightening once more in determination. He seemed about to drop himself back to the mattress, to pull Xanatos’s thighs toward him, but Xanatos stopped him.

“Owen...have you never done this before?”

Owen’s gaze flicked away from him, somewhere towards the far corner of the room. Xanatos drew his chin back, with the light touch of three fingers.

“No, sir, I’m afraid I haven’t,” Owen replied, reluctantly.

“Giving, or receiving?” Xanatos pressed. It was impossible, of course he must have—

But Owen shook his head after a moment. Neither.

Xanatos hadn’t been paying close enough attention at all, had he? He thought back on it now: on how eagerly Owen responded to everything they tried, how it got easier, day by day, his body now readily accepting Xanatos’s tongue, his cock, when initially it’d all been tense resistance, muscles that Xanatos had to coax into relaxation before the frustration would ease out of Owen’s face.

He’d never done it before. Any of it.

Xanatos had asked Owen about his dating life, long ago—a question that he knew was inappropriate from an employer, but Owen hadn’t taken offense.

 _I hardly have time for that sort of thing, Mr. Xanatos_ , he’d replied.

Xanatos curled his fingers around Owen’s ear, tucking them into his blond hair. It was soft; a little scratchy at the back of his neck, where it’d been trimmed short. “I didn’t realize,” he said. “Is it just since...you came to work here? Or since you became Owen?”

Owen’s expression tightened again, his discomfort evident. “I’m afraid I don’t have any of the experience you’re looking for, Mr. Xanatos,” he said, stiffly. “As Owen, or...or as Puck. I’ve never been interested in that sort of thing before.”

Xanatos could see Puck in the lines of Owen’s face sometimes: in the sharp cut of his jaw, the thin curve of his pale eyebrows, in the surprisingly expressive movements of a mouth that, around the general public, he usually kept firmly pressed into a dour expression, masking what he truly felt, how extraordinarily clever and creative he was.

And then there were his eyes, so unlike Xanatos’s own: like two chips of Antarctic ice. Indescribably blue and fathomless, able to send a shiver down Xanatos’s spine with the slightest flick in his direction. There was a certain mischievous light that would glimmer behind them, sometimes, particularly whenever he was making a snarky comment about an investor, or criticizing one of Xanatos’s plans.

Xanatos never fully forgot how powerful Owen was. He’d come to care about it surprisingly little. Owen was a being of pure magic who’d taken on a life as a human—a man who let Xanatos snap orders at him; who accompanied him to the edges of the world; who had, inexplicably, chosen to spend his nights with Xanatos, holding him in his extraordinarily human arms.

Owen was a man who’d spent more than a millennium free of these kinds of entrapments, his body and soul wholly untouched.

Xanatos kissed him, taking care to move his lips the way he’d learned Owen liked, to stroke work-roughened fingers at the sensitive spot behind Owen’s ear, to accept the push of Owen’s tongue into his mouth, his keen exploration.

“Would you like me to show you how it’s done?” Xanatos asked, his thumb pressing lightly at the corner of Owen’s mouth, where he’d stretched it too far. Where, if they’d gone on for longer, it might’ve bruised.

“Of course,” Owen said; before he could shift back on the bed again, Xanatos drew him to the edge of the mattress, then frowned—the height wasn’t right.

“Come with me,” Xanatos said, taking Owen to the chair by the window, where the moonlight could spill over them both.

Owen gave him a questioning look when Xanatos pressed him into the soft leather, when he dropped to his knees, firmly spreading Owen’s thighs around him.

“Let me show you how it can feel,” he said.

Xanatos hadn’t done this in a long time; it took a little while to adjust to the feeling of Owen in his mouth, to the warm, salty taste of his skin.

With his throat occupied, he couldn’t speak when Owen braced both hands against the top of his head, digging fervid fingers into his hair, gripping painfully at his scalp, without even seeming to realize what he was doing. He pushed Owen’s hands away, back to the leather arms of the chair, once, then again a few moments later—after his third attempt, he sat back, letting Owen’s cock slide out of his mouth.

“Do I have to _tie_ your hands together to make you stop?” he asked, in frustration.

Owen’s eyes dilated suddenly.

Well, in that case.

After that first night, Owen had always arrived at Xanatos’s room in his usual suit and tie. Although he missed the lace, a little, Xanatos didn’t mind the extra effort that came from unbuttoning him, slowly sliding the teeth of his zipper down, unknotting the tie that rested so close to the tender skin of his throat.

He retrieved the tie now; it’d wound up partially under the night stand, next to Owen’s glasses, which he carefully folded and put in a more secure place. On his way back to Owen, Xanatos paused, then unwound two of the velvet ropes that held his curtains open.

It wasn’t the only window in the room, but it was the largest; as the curtains swung shut over cold glass, the room’s shadows deepened. Xanatos took his time, letting his eyes adjust as he bent over Owen again, fastening his unresisting hands behind his back with a few skillful turns of red silk around his wrists. Xanatos tested the knot when he was done; it would hold.

He dropped to his knees again and turned to his next task. Owen inhaled in surprise when Xanatos pushed his legs farther apart, tying first one, then the other, to the heavily clawed feet at the base of the chair. He slid a finger under the velvet rope, feeling Owen’s pulse throb as he brushed against the delicately jutting bones of his ankles.

“Too tight?” he asked.

Owen shook his head. “No, Mr. Xanatos.” His voice was throatier than Xanatos had heard it before, and he rose up for a moment, hands set on Owen’s trembling thighs, to kiss him.

“Relax,” he said as he sank back down, turning his attention to the task at hand—hopefully without further interruptions. “Let me do all the work for once, Owen,” he said.

They both knew how easily Owen could free himself from his bonds, if he wished. Instead, he held himself as still as he could, his hips occasionally giving fitful jerks he couldn’t quite control, his mouth parting as he panted, then, finally, groaned in time with the bob of Xanatos’s head.

Each time Xanatos felt Owen getting close, he pulled off, letting Owen’s cock jut wetly into the air as he kissed his inner thighs instead, scraping his beard against the tender skin there. “Not yet,” he’d say, and Owen would comply, shivering.

“Sir,” Owen pleaded after a while, the syllable broken with raw need.

“Soon,” Xanatos promised, then demanded, “Make noise for me, Owen. Show me you want it.”

He eventually relented, using his hand and his mouth to bring Owen all the way to the edge again, this time letting him spill over. Xanatos swallowed what he could, wiped his beard free of the rest, then kissed Owen again when he was done. He didn’t unwind the ropes—not yet. He stroked himself first, each sweep of his hand over his cock mirrored by the movements of his tongue in Owen’s avid mouth, until his muscles clenched, until he spent himself over Owen’s chest.

“I thought you wanted to avoid making a mess,” Owen said a bit later, his voice still shaking slightly, as Xanatos sponged a damp towel over his chiseled abdomen and the firm planes of his chest, before finally loosing him.

Xanatos rubbed at the light marks along Owen’s ankles, his wrists, kissing each of them in turn. “Sometimes it’s worth the mess, Owen,” he said, guiding them back to the bed, where he could tangle their legs together, wrapping Owen’s arms around him.

A few weeks later, Xanatos broke the rules he’dset in place for his entire life, ones he’d never thought would cause him the slightest temptation. He asked, his heart in his throat, strangely desperate to hear the answer, whether Owen loved him.

Owen didn’t respond at first. When he did, it was as though the _yes_ had been wrenched out of him.

Xanatos kissed him in relief, unable to say the words back, not even sure if...but it hardly mattered. He knew this: Owen’s body, the way they fit perfectly together, the pleasure that Xanatos gleaned from each of their encounters, each time sweeter and more addictive than the last. It wasn’t purely physical, not anymore. Perhaps it never had been.

He sank everything he had into Owen, giving until it hurt, until it felt like he might burst from it, until Owen arched violently into him and groaned in something like agony, murmuring an _I love you_ that Xanatos could barely hear.

Owen still left him before morning.

***

The truth was, Xanatos nearly forgot about Owen for a few days after Fox’s return.

It made sense, initially. Of course Owen wouldn’t come to his bedroom right away, while Fox was there, while Xanatos was occupied with showing her how deeply he’d missed her. The two of them needed some time together first; Xanatos reveled in it, enjoying the softness of her lips, the familiar scent of her hair.

He was glad to have her back, and it was practical, after everything, for her to move in. They were no longer pretending he had no connection to Pack Media Studios. With the rest of the Pack rampaging around the city as criminals and fugitives, the newly paroled Fox was free to slip into a new role: a truer partner in Xanatos’s life and business, with certain branches that she might like to helm, or expand.

Owen simply nodded when Xanatos proposed those changes. “As you wish, sir,” he’d said, not offering further suggestions.

It took at least a week, perhaps two, for Xanatos to realize that Owen was acting differently.

And by then, it almost seemed too late to do anything about it.

***

“You’ve never looked more heroic.”

Owen’s words didn’t fully register at first. Xanatos was preoccupied by the soft weight of Fox in his arms, by the overwhelming relief that she was unharmed by his latest experiment-gone-awry. That was twice now that he’d put Fox in serious danger—the Pack’s arrest, and now this monstrous werefox, who’d grown far beyond his and Owen’s ability to control.

He’d had to turn to Goliath for help. The _gargoyle_ , who was too insignificant to deserve the term archnemesis, but whose smug condescension over his own heroism would chafe at Xanatos for weeks.

Still, the important part was that Fox was safe. And that...he _loved_ her, he realized, feeling strangely helpless with it. Goliath had mocked him for thinking of it as a weakness, but what else could it be, when it threw his plans off course, making him give up something he’d fought so long to achieve. Goliath had the Eye of Odin now and would certainly not be returning it without a fight.

Xanatos clenched his jaw in irritation; he’d been too overcome by the thought of losing Fox to do anything other than turn it over. Letting go of the potential for extraordinary power, because of _love_. It was a purely emotional decision, the likes of which he hadn’t made since...

Halfway across the roof, he turned. Owen was still standing where he’d left him, his overcoat flapping from the wind kicked up by the helicopter’s blades. He was watching Xanatos, his face so open and soft that Xanatos’s heart nearly turned over in his chest. The helicopter’s spotlight was still trained on that section of the roof—under it, Owen’s blond hair looked brighter than usual, almost golden. For a moment, between one blink and the next, Xanatos could’ve sworn he saw it glowing pure white.

In his arms, Fox stirred a little, murmuring in what sounded too much like pain, and Xanatos looked down at her, freeing one hand to stroke her tangled hair out of her face. When he looked up again, Owen had turned away, his expression once again calmly impassive, as though Xanatos had imagined the entire thing.


	4. Chapter 4

The wedding was easy to plan. A mysterious courier arrived the week prior with a time-worn envelope similar to the one Xanatos had received when he was twenty years old. That first envelope had held a single coin: worth $20,000, more than enough to kickstart his first company. This second letter, which Owen lifted dubious eyebrows at before handing it to Xanatos, was far more detailed.

“That’s your handwriting, Mr. Xanatos,” he said.

Xanatos, who’d already begun opening the flap, flipped the envelope to the front, then chuckled. “If I’d only had you with me twenty years ago,” he mused. A lot could change in that amount of time, including, it appeared, his penmanship. Or at least his ability to recognize it—and the possibility of time travel.

“Sir?” Owen asked.

“The letter’s from me,” Xanatos said, carefully extracting the brittle pages. “As was, apparently, the start of my fortune. Owen—will you call my father? I’m getting married next week, and I’d like to invite him.”

Owen blinked, his jaw clicking shut. “Of course,” he said.

“Wait—” Xanatos, still reading, threw out one arm to stop him from leaving. He misjudged the distance; Owen caught his wrist before they made impact. He let go, quickly, with a slight shake of his fingers, as though burnt.

A fragment of the letter flaked away under Xanatos’s grip; he loosened it before the rest followed.

“You needed me for something else, Mr. Xanatos?” Owen prompted when the silence drew on.

 _Yes_ , Xanatos thought. He simply handed the letter over. “You should read this, Owen,” he said. The closely filled pages explained exactly what he needed to do—and when—to ensure his own past happened the way it was meant to. The letter mentioned Fox, his father, the gargoyles, and an item of immense power.

“The Phoenix Gate,” Owen said when he’d finished.

“You know it?”

“It was forged on Avalon,” Owen said.

It was an _of course_ , more politely stated—but barely.

“I’ll make the arrangements, sir,” Owen said. He set the letter back down, not needing it for reference, and left Xanatos to absorb the details.

The week passed quickly; the only difficulty was convincing Goliath to play his part. Or, so Xanatos thought until the day of the ceremony, when he had to deal with his father. He made his escape before long, claiming he had to check in on Fox.

It took him a bit of wandering to find her; she’d established herself in one of the larger bathrooms, comfortably furnished as more of a lounge. She opened the door with a, “David, I’m not dressed yet,” that wasn’t exactly a protest.

“I thought you didn’t believe in any of those superstitutions,” he said.

“Mmm,” she replied, standing on her toes to greet him properly. “True, although that was mostly for your father’s benefit. Is he being insufferable?”

Xanatos didn’t answer; holding Fox was far more pleasant than discussing his family difficulties.

“Stay and watch if you want,” she said eventually. “But let me fix my makeup. It takes time to look this good, you know.”

He propped himself up in the corner of the room, waiting as she pulled up her white stockings and readjusted the ruffles on her shoulders before turning to the long bank of brightly-lit mirrors to begin work on her hair.

“Do you mind that your parents aren’t here?” he asked as she deftly twisted and pinned the heavy red strands, in movements that felt like a well-choreographed dance.

“No,” Fox said after a moment, freeing her mouth of the last of the pins. “You know my dad and I hardly talk. And my mother’s still overseas. She might’ve been able to make it if we’d told her earlier, but your letter didn’t mention her. I’d rather not get either of them involved.”

She slid open a drawer, rattling through the toiletries inside, then withdrew a curling iron and began to undo the hair she’d just finished adjusting. “Shouldn’t you be getting dressed, too? While I love you in that, David, I can’t imagine it’s fashionable in 975.”

Xanatos glanced down at his gargoyle exo-frame, which they both knew he’d put on in a thinly veiled attempt to impress his father. “You helped me pick out my tux, my dear.”

“I know,” Fox said, lifting her face to let him kiss her again; he twisted one of her long curls around his finger, careful to keep his steel wings from scraping against the glass. She pushed him away, lightly. “Go put it on. I’ll be ready in a minute.”

More like an hour, he thought as he obediently shut the door behind him. The actual timeline for the ceremony wasn’t as strict as the date—future David Xanatos hadn’t recalled the exact time of their departure—but he knew they had to wait, at least, until nightfall.

Very nearly _current_ David Xanatos now, he supposed. It was strange to think of all the things he could’ve included in that first letter. Why had he chosen only the coin? There were so many other options: stock market tips, Fox’s name so he could be certain he’d meet her, the location of half the magical artifacts he’d spent the last decade hunting.

The answer, of course, was that it wasn’t how time worked. When Owen had returned from his initial set of phone calls, they’d spent several hours talking through the implications. The time stream was fixed; Xanatos could only go back in time today because he’d already done it. If he tried to change anything else, it’d either have disastrous consequences, or it’d simply fail.

 _Does that mean it’s fate, then_ , Xanatos had asked, throwing himself into his chair and frowning at the scrawled instructions he’d sent himself. _But I don’t believe in that, Owen._

 _I can’t answer that, Mr. Xanatos_ , Owen had said. At Xanatos’s impatient movement, he’d clarified, _Because I don’t know. Like you, I move linearly—more or less. I’ve just been around for longer._

Owen had shifted a stack of books from one library table to another, not actually bothering to reshelve them. It was an unusual restlessness that over the years had signaled he was treading dangerously close to the terms of their contract. While his stores of knowledge weren’t off-limits, Owen always left Xanatos to discover any useful incantations, spells, or assorted magical objects on his own. It’d been an occasional source of frustration...but also made it reasonable to assume that in this case, he was debating what more he could reveal.

When Owen had finally resumed speaking, though, it was something entirely new: a topic he’d never brought up, even during their long conversations late at night in Xanatos’s bed.

_The thing I’ve always admired about humanity—about you, Mr. Xanatos—is your drive to make your own destiny. Whether it’s futile or not, I can’t say. All I know is that it’s something the fae don’t have. We already know our future. It’s the same as our past; the same for every last one of us. Avalon. When Lord Oberon calls us, we don’t have a choice._

Xanatos made his way through long, echoing corridors, not consciously choosing a path, until he reached a carpeted section that muffled his steps. By the library; perhaps it wasn’t surprising that his feet had followed his thoughts.

He stopped outside the partially opened doors; there were voices within. Mostly his father’s, raised in its usual criticism.

“...all these books,” he was saying. There was a slight _thump_ —he’d probably tossed one onto a table. “Does he even read them? Or is it like everything else in this so-called home of his—he buys them because he can. Another pointless show of wealth.”

“Mr. Xanatos reads what he has time for,” Owen said.

Xanatos let out an inaudible huff of laughter at the thought of Owen’s expression if his father _had_ been carelessly handling any of their more priceless books.

Inside the room, Petros Xanatos made a similar noise—far louder, and more scornful.

“If you have any specific interests,” Owen continued calmly, “I’m sure either he or I would be able to recommend some from our collection.”

Petros, of course, didn’t take him up on the offer. He pivoted, sensing a new area where he could sow dissension. “And how much does he pay you to talk like that? The only guest he could manage for this sham of a wedding, and it’s because you _have_ to be there.” Almost kindly, as though he thought he was genuinely bonding with Owen, he added, “David must be hard to work for. I notice it’s always _Mister Xanatos_ from you. Does he make you refer to him that way?” Petros snorted loudly; Xanatos could almost see him shaking his head. “It’s like him. He was always trying to be above his station, and his family. He couldn’t make an honest living working the boats with me; he wanted to be lord of the manor.”

“No,” Owen said, after a pause. “He’s never asked me to call him anything specific. It’s how I think of him. You gave him the name _David_. He doesn’t use it. He’s earned the _Xanatos_ , through every company and building he’s stamped it on.”

Petros didn’t respond. Owen continued, with another _thump_ that was probably him pointedly moving displaced books back to their proper spots. Not the valuable ones, then, unless he was angrier than this conversation should make him.

“Mr. Xanatos may be your son, but that doesn’t mean you know him. Perhaps if you tried, you’d see he’s a far better man than you give him credit for. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to attend to. You’re welcome to read anything you like in here.”

In his bulky exo-frame, Xanatos didn’t have time to make it back down the hallway before Owen emerged; he slipped into a nearby room instead, waiting until well after he’d heard the library’s oversized doors creak the rest of the way open, then forcefully shut. Owen wouldn’t have minded being overheard; Xanatos knew that, but—there was something about having those words thrown in his defense today, shortly before his wedding and the events that had changed the course of his life.

Xanatos’s entire life had been built around the concept that he didn’t need anyone’s help. There’d been a fly in the ointment for a while—that coin that set everything off. Xanatos hadn’t ever used any of his father’s money, paltry as it was. But he _had_ accepted a leg up from a mysterious benefactor. That knowledge had always grated at him. It’d been something his father had used against him.

Today, when they jumped through the Phoenix Gate, he’d finally be able to prove that he’d done it entirely on his own. Every last bit of it, including that first, crucial investment. Like he’d sworn to himself thirty years earlier, he could make his own money, build his own destiny, fight his own battles. And now he had his hands on the final, absolute proof of that. He’d sent his past self a valuable coin with no note, no instructions, and the confidence that he’d be able to rise to the challenge.

Absolutely alone.

Back in his bedroom, freeing himself of his heavy armor, Xanatos wondered what twenty-year-old David Xanatos would’ve thought if he’d received a letter along with the coins.

Because the truth was, Xanatos wasn’t alone anymore, and he didn’t want to be. He had Fox, who’d never been fazed by even his wildest schemes. She’d forgiven him for what he’d done in the past—the experiments he hadn’t told her she’d be a part of—and had whole-heartedly chosen to accompany him along every step of this new journey. She’d even, he thought, chuckling at what he’d seen earlier, chosen a wedding dress that was both beautiful and practical, giving her freedom of movement for what came after the wedding—the skirmish in the forest that his letter had warned of. Like him, Fox had always been prepared for everything. And now they were binding that strength together: forever.

Xanatos left his empty steel suit propped against the wall and began assembling his tuxedo instead.

And he had Owen, who somehow knew Xanatos better than he’d ever been able to manage on his own. It should’ve been more than enough—a future far beyond that which even he had been capable of envisioning. But something about Petros’s words still smarted.

_You have to be here._

Owen hadn’t denied that part.

It’d been two months since he’d let Xanatos touch him. And now, Xanatos wondered if he’d ever truly wanted it at all.

A bare twenty minutes before the ceremony was due to start, Xanatos stood in front of his full-length mirror, fastening the buttons of his tuxedo shirt with some effort. Despite having been in armor then as well, he was still sore from his negotiation—and brief battle—with Goliath the night before. That had to be why his hands were shaking.

“Allow me, sir,” Owen said.

Xanatos looked up, startled; he hadn’t heard Owen enter the room. It’d been two months, he thought again, his heart aching beyond its capacity, since Owen had walked through that doorway of his own volition—or so Xanatos had thought at the time.

“It’s the pleating,” Xanatos said, unable to express any of that. “And these cursed tiny buttons. I can’t get my fingers around them.”

Owen didn’t respond. He stepped in front of Xanatos, nearly close enough to share breath, his lips turned down in concentration as he undid a line of mismatched buttons before efficiently finishing off the rest. He turned up Xanatos’s shirt collar next, visibly careful not to touch his skin in the process, and looped the fabric of Xanatos’s tie around the back of his neck.

“Owen,” Xanatos said.

Owen glanced at him, his too-swift motions not pausing. When he finished the last loop, the final knot, he’d leave again. And Xanatos...he couldn’t bear that.

“Owen, you know that if I...” Xanatos stopped, swallowing as his collar closed around his throat. “Goliath is only my best man because he had to be, for this plan to work. You know that if it was my choice—you’d be standing there with me, Owen.”

“I understand, Mr. Xanatos,” Owen said.

The problem was that he didn’t, not at all. And Xanatos didn’t know how to explain it to him.

“Owen,” he tried again. “Would you have said yes, if I’d asked you?”

Owen straightened the completed bow tie and stepped back. “Of course, Mr. Xanatos,” he said, with a respectful dip of his chin, their eyes not meeting. “That’s what I’m here for.”

It wasn’t the answer he’d wanted. Not at all.


	5. Chapter 5

“Your father’s been an idiot,” Xanatos said.

Alex, who should have been asleep long ago, reached up to tug at his beard, then erupted into giggles when Xanatos lifted him higher to affectionately rub his face against his son’s.

“Don’t you know it’s rude to agree, even if I’m the one who said it.”

Alex nuzzled against him—warm and loving and everything Xanatos hadn’t known he’d needed. His arrival had brought many things into Xanatos’s life. A sense of family: even Halcyon and Petros had softened when they’d met their grandson. He and Fox might never have typical relationships with their parents—Fox’s Fae Queen mother was a particularly unforeseen complication—but they were trying. All of them, in their own ways. And Xanatos swore he’d never make the same mistakes with his own son.

Alex would always know how loved he was, how wanted. Xanatos was learning that not everything had to be earned or battled for. Some parts of your life turned out to be gifts, dropped into your lap when least expected, asking only that you cherish them. Xanatos intended to.

“I know you’ve had a rough day,” he said quietly, still pressing his face against his son’s, assuring them both that they were together now. “So did I. I nearly lost you yesterday. And Owen.”

Alex made a soft noise at that, gurgling in question and looking around the room, his tiny forehead furrowing.

“You’ll see Owen again tomorrow,” Xanatos promised. “He needs to rest. And when _you_ finally go to sleep, I can go check on him. Will you do that for your dads, Alex?”

It took another hour for Alex to finally settle; Xanatos stayed by his crib for a while after that, doing his best not to be consumed by all the worries that had never occurred to him before becoming a parent. Were the blankets too scratchy, or too soft? Should the huge windows—elegant and impressive, he’d thought when he’d first had them installed—be covered in bars to dissuade intruders? What kind of man would Alexander Fox Xanatos grow into? Would he want to follow his father’s path? Or forge his own—running headlong after something Xanatos might not understand or think was wise.

Alex was barely six months old. Those questions could wait.

Xanatos stopped by Fox’s bed; she was sleeping, her hair pooled across her pillow, the worried lines of her face not fully smoothed out. He kissed her forehead, careful not to disturb her.

Owen was waiting for him. They’d both waited long enough.

***

Xanatos woke to warm sunlight, to the quiet murmur of Owen’s voice.

He didn’t move at first, basking in it. They’d shifted at some point in the night; his cheek was resting against a pillow, rather than the firm muscles of Owen’s chest, but there were capable fingers stroking absently through his hair.

Xanatos tried to keep his breathing quiet and even, not wanting Owen to know yet that he was awake: not wanting him to stop. He’d never felt anything quite like it before. It wasn’t sensual, exactly; there was simply a languid comfort to it, a pleasant tingling that spread from his scalp at each pass of Owen’s fingers—rubbing soothingly at the base of his neck and behind his ear, sliding through his hair, pausing to loosen an occasional tangle.

When the soothing rumble of Owen’s voice stopped, Xanatos finally opened his eyes.

“Good morning,” Owen said, with a little curve to his lips that meant he’d been fully aware Xanatos had only been feigning sleep. He was sitting upright in bed, still shirtless, with the sheets pooled low on his waist; he’d put his glasses on but hadn’t done anything with his hair, which was appealingly sleep-mussed and tinted gold in the sunlight.

Owen’s stone hand—a part of him ever since the failed Cauldron of Life, one of Xanatos's first bids for immortality after the wedding—was propping his phone against his ear, leaving the other free to brush Xanatos’s hair out of his eyes. He’d need to move it in order to make another call; he didn’t make the attempt just yet, perhaps anticipating Xanatos’s objections.

“Are you working from bed, Owen?” he asked, tilting his face so he could see him a little better, without otherwise disrupting his current deep sense of comfort.

“The markets don’t wait, Mr. Xanatos.”

Xanatos huffed out a laugh, and Owen’s eyebrows did something funny, his lips twisting, before he corrected it to: “Xanatos. I’m afraid that’ll take some getting used to.”

Xanatos sat up; unfortunately, it meant dislodging Owen’s hand, but Owen simply let himself adapt to the movement, trailing his palm down Xanatos’s neck and shoulder, until he’d somehow drawn Xanatos to his side, his arm securely around his waist.

“You can call me anything you want, Owen,” Xanatos said. He mirrored Owen’s gesture, lifting his left arm around Owen’s shoulders, taking the phone in the process so Owen could lower his bulky fist. Xanatos dropped the phone, not caring where it fell, and swept a greedily possessive palm down Owen’s side and along his tautly muscled abdomen before settling against the warm cut of Owen’s hip. It was a sensation Xanatos hadn’t known it was possible to miss this much.

“I’ve been realizing a lot of things lately,” he said. “And with you, me, Fox...I think we’ve all shown that it’s not the names that matter.”

“It’s who we choose to be,” Owen said, his face turned to Xanatos’s, his eyes crinkled into something that looked remarkably like affection.

 _He loves me_ , Xanatos reminded himself, in soft wonder, then: _I love him_. How was it possible to hold this much love without emptying himself? But no matter how much he’d been drawing from it of late, the well never seemed in danger of running dry. It restored itself through moments like these, when all of his life seemed impossibly full.

“It’s well past nine,” Owen said after a period of comfortable silence, his gaze flicking to the window—the angle of the sun outside—rather to the clock hanging on the other side of the room. “Should we be attending to young Alexander?”

Xanatos smoothed his thumb along Owen’s waist, enjoying how it made both of them shiver. “Fox offered to take this morning’s shift.”

“In that case, I suppose we can remain here a bit longer,” Owen said, folding away both his recovered phone and his glasses.

When they kissed, everything felt right: finally whole, the way it’d always been meant to be.

Xanatos was careful with Owen, testing for tenderness, for dizziness, cautious with his immobile forearm—a sign, still, of the old distance between them, of how badly they’d hurt each other—until Owen pushed back with his typical annoyance.

“As I’ve been telling you since yesterday, I’m perfectly fine,” he said, flipping Xanatos unexpectedly to his back so he could scowl down at him with greater emphasis.

Xanatos pushed his hips against Owen’s, his hands cradling Owen’s extraordinary face, tugging it towards him. It didn’t make any difference how the world saw them, or even what they called each other. The only thing that mattered was this: the two of them together, and the simple promise that he breathed into Owen’s mouth.

_I’m yours._

***

When Xanatos finally tracked down his missing son, it was in the formal dining room—high in the chandeliers, where Alex and Owen were cheerfully swinging.

Xanatos nearly sagged against the wall in relief before calling up to the ceiling: “Were you ever planning on _telling_ me you’d already found him, Owen?”

The face that peered down at him was familiar-but-not: Xanatos had been seeing more of Owen like this lately, with Alex’s training in full....swing, as it were. He snorted at his own joke but kept it to himself, still simmering with too much of the earlier panic, now momentarily channeled into irritation with Owen.

“I’d thought Fox would have run across you,” Owen replied, not quite apologetically. “She discovered us about a half hour ago. I’ve been...preoccupied here. Alexander can be exceptionally strong-willed.”

“Is it any wonder, with the three of us as parents?” Xanatos asked; Owen responded with one of the laughs that came much more readily in this form. “Would you come down? Both of you. You remember what it was like the last time you had Alex attempt magical healing.”

“We’re in no danger of breaking anything,” Owen grumbled, always a little sour when Xanatos questioned his...often rather questionable, but usually rather effective, teaching methods. He did say Alexander’s name, firmly enough to bring them both drifting down to solid ground.

“It is possible,” Owen admitted once they’d touched down, “that I shouldn’t have taught him physical transformation at _quite_ so young an age.”

“Do you think?” Xanatos asked. Ever since Alex had passed his first birthday, he’d seemed determined to explore his newfound abilities to not only walk, but to—with a simple twitch of his little nose—shapeshift into an increasingly worrying array of creatures.

“Meadowlark, this time,” Owen explained. “I eventually heard him singing in here.”

“Good thing we finished installing those barriers of yours, Owen,” Xanatos said. Most of their security systems had been set up for defense; Owen had spent the last two months crafting an invisible shield around their home, designed specifically to keep a small, quarter-fae, Puck-raised child from escaping. “He’ll hate that by the time he’s eighteen.”

Owen’s wide grin faded a touch. “He’ll learn control long before then. He’s an exceptionally intelligent child.” It was a familiar statement; this time, Owen narrowed his eyes at Alex, who was innocently clinging to the scalloped edge of his robes. “Though not quite as well-behaved as I’d previously thought.”

“Can you blame him? Parents like us, and boiling over with magic that might even have the potential to match yours? I can only imagine what you were like at this age, Owen.”

“I can assure you,” Owen said with a haughty— _puckish_ , Xanatos thought—tilt of his chin, “that I have been an absolute delight from the moment I entered this world.”

“Oh, I’m certain of that,” Xanatos replied fondly, any lingering frustration dissipating. It was odd, sometimes, to remember that the man he loved was so well-known, so mythically influential, that his name had become a part of the common lexicon. But no one else knew him like this: as Owen, an inextricable part now of Xanatos’s own soul.

His tone was clear enough; Owen rose smoothly to him, hovering a foot off the ground, to meet Xanatos’s lips. Owen always wore his emotions more openly when he was fresh from tapping into his magic: still filled with his usual cynicism and snappy comebacks, but with chattier enthusiasm and a sharper, more playful sense of mischief.

He missed it, Xanatos was sure; he had to. Wouldn’t anyone, who’d once had the power of the universe at their fingertips? Xanatos tried to convey his guilt and gratitude along with his love. He wasn’t sure if Owen gathered the full message; he responded the same as he always did, the movement of his lips as fervent as the first time they’d kissed.

They didn’t have much time, Xanatos knew; he stroked Owen’s shimmering hair, so soft it almost felt like liquid, constantly slipping out of his grasp. He curled his fingers around one of Owen’s long, pointed ears—more difficult in this form, but he’d learned that it was something Owen enjoyed. Not in an erogenous way, he’d said once, his mouth flattening like—despite everything they’d done with each other—the mere suggestion was offensive.

He hadn’t explained further, but Xanatos thought he understood. It was something about his fae nature—the fact that it was a piece of him that was literally missing when he returned to his usual shape.

It was yet another part of him that Xanatos loved.

Too soon, he felt Owen’s body, firmly pressed against his, begin to change.

His ears were the first to shift back, the flared lines of them flattening out, then rapidly shrinking. His hair shortened, too, brightening back to gold, as his shoulders broadened considerably, but the rest—his sky-blue eyes, the taste of his mouth, the jaw he tilted into Xanatos’s hand with a sigh as their lips parted—were all the time. Owen stepped back slightly, his feet now touching the ground.

“It appears the training session is over,” he said.

Alex had wandered away again; they found him halfway down the room, sitting underneath the table, quietly playing with a toy he must’ve found somewhere. Or created, Xanatos guessed, from the wry turn of Owen’s lips and the fact that the toy abruptly disappeared into thin air when Owen picked Alex up.

He reached for Owen’s glasses, instead—within tempting reach while he was securely propped in the crook of Owen’s half-stone arm. “No,” Owen said, with increasing exasperation, until finally giving in and tilting his face down enough for Alex to tug the frames free. He was trying not to smile, and failing.

“You might need to switch to contact lenses—or iron frames,” Xanatos suggested, deflecting Owen’s now flatly unamused response by drawing both of them into his arms for a moment, kissing the softly rounded tip of Owen’s ear.

They made it through lunch without further incident, other than the carnage of pasta splattered across the floor, its red sauce liberally smeared along Alex’s grinning face.

“It’s in his hair,” Fox sighed. “Whose turn is it for bathtime?”

“I believe only one of us hasn’t had the joy yet this week,” Owen said, retrieving a dustpan and looking meaningfully at Xanatos, who’d failed to come up with an excuse in time.

“If he turns into a duck and tries to fly away again,” Xanatos warned, plucking Alex out of his high chair.

“It was a goose the last time,” Fox said, with a slight shudder. She feared nothing on the planet: except, possibly, birds with sharply ridged, tooth-like beaks. “We need to stop letting him watch TV with the gargoyles. Hudson’s too fond of the nature channel.”

“A strict diet from now on,” Xanatos agreed, nuzzling his nose against Alex’s small, sticky one. “The driest, most educational books you can find, Owen.”

“It’ll be my pleasure,” Owen said. “Shall we start the encyclopedia alphabetically, or do you have a preference for a particular letter?”

Xanatos laughed, and kissed first him, then Fox, rubbing his freshly sauce-streaked-nose against her protesting cheek, before going in search of a tub he could wrangle his child into.

***

“How was your evening?” Owen asked a few nights later, looking up from Alex’s crib when Xanatos entered the room. From the shimmering lights that were still suspended around him for a few seconds before blinking out, Xanatos gathered he’d been in Puck-form a short time earlier. Alex always slept suspiciously late on the mornings after Owen had been solely in charge of watching him.

Xanatos didn’t ask what he’d been learning; sometimes Owen preferred to share information at his own pace. And Xanatos would never begrudge him either the time with their son or the chance to indulge in his magic.

“Good,” he replied, then cracked a yawn while tossing his suit jacket onto a nearby chair. “Tiring. Fox still has energy—she’s not home yet, she wanted to stay for at least a few more tangos with someone named Sergio—but I’m ready for bed.”

“Age does catch up with you,” Owen said, with a smirk that was a little too wide. Further confirmation as to what he’d been doing moments ago, and too solid an opening for a conversation that’d been wearing on Xanatos.

“Do you miss being him?” Xanatos asked, abruptly.

Owen blinked, then pushed his glasses up his nose. He didn’t ask for clarification. “I still am,” he said.

“You know what I mean,” Xanatos said.

He approached the other side of the crib and looked down into it: Alex’s limbs were flung wide, his chest lifting with tiny snores. Nothing about Owen had _changed_ , in a certain sense, when Oberon had stripped away his powers and banished him from Avalon. But they couldn’t pretend that he hadn’t lost something. And, in the end, it’d been because of Xanatos. Because Owen had chosen him and his family over eternity.

“I’ll never regret it,” Owen said, answering the unspoken question. He moved to Xanatos’s side, turning him with an easy touch to his shoulders, and began unlooping his bow tie. “I...miss the option,” he admitted eventually. “I like being who I am now. I wish it wasn’t _all_ I could be.”

They fit together seamlessly; Xanatos did what he could to convey the rest of his thoughts the best way he knew.

“I’d like to take you to dinner,” he said after a final, bruising kiss, followed by a possessive trail of his teeth and tongue down Owen’s jawline, then throat.

“It’s considerably late for that,” Owen replied breathlessly as Xanatos flattened his tongue over the reddening skin. His hands were still halfway up the back of Xanatos’s shirt, which they’d only managed to partially unbutton before closing the distance between them.

“Not tonight. Another time.” Xanatos rested his forehead against Owen’s; he was tired, still, but felt some energy seeping back into him from the contact. “Or if not dinner—I’m not sure if the symphony’s your style, but there’s that new antiquities exhibit at the museum...”

“Ah,” Owen said dryly. “I’ll fit right in.”

Xanatos laughed, moving back, without releasing Owen entirely, so he could better see his face. It was strange, still, to think of Owen wandering the earth a thousand years before they’d met. He’d begun to tell Alex bedtime stories; Xanatos would lean against the doorframe, listening. Knowing that Owen would never run out, and that he would never tire of hearing them.

“Are you proposing that we go on a date, Mr. Xanatos?” Owen asked, his eyebrows lifted in amusement, the lines of his mouth still soft with affection.

“If you’d like that, Owen,” Xanatos said.

It felt strange to think they’d never done something so formal. Fox enjoyed having an excuse to dress up, and the two of them periodically escaped from parenting demands to explore the city’s active nightlife. Xanatos couldn’t picture Owen sitting in an opera box or moving seductively on a dance floor; they weren’t the kind of couple that held hands or rode horse-drawn carriages through the park. There were other ways, though, to spend time in public with someone you loved. Someone you were proud—and immensely fortunate—to have at your side.

“You know you don’t always have to be the one to take care of Alex,” Xanatos said. Even on nights like tonight, it didn’t need to default to him; Owen should have an equal choice. “We can find a babysitter.”

The complication, as the twist of Owen’s mouth wordlessly conveyed, was that they’d need to be fully vetted, with at least a cursory understanding of what to do if Alex displayed some of his unusual qualities. While Alex’s grandfathers were possibilities, those relationships were still strained enough to make it a difficult request.

Owen glanced at the crib, then at the night sky spread across the bank of windows. “With the gargoyles reinstalled here in the castle: might I suggest Lexington?”

“Of course!” Xanatos exclaimed. It was an obvious solution: a gargoyle babysitter for a fae child. With the Quarrymen disbanded and the city looking more kindly on what they now considered their resident heroes, Alex couldn’t be in much safer hands. Hands that, true, were often caught in a stranglehold around an irksomely limited moral code, but all of Goliath’s Clan had proved their worth—and even trustworthiness—of late.

“As long as we return before daybreak,” Owen continued, ready to dive into planning this out with his usual attention to detail.

“Hmm,” Xanatos said. “I’m not sure I can make any promises on that count, Owen.”

He was joking, in part, but also thinking now of what it’d be like to stay out with Owen until dawn: to resume traveling together, this time sharing a bed, waking each morning to a new sunrise in every part of the world imaginable. After all, it wasn’t like they were the ones who turned to—

Xanatos cut his own thoughts off, abruptly, and slid his hands down Owen’s arms, which had still been loosely wrapped around him. Owen let him pry them free, then push their bodies farther apart to gaze in disbelief at what he’d somehow missed. Two arms, two wrists: two entirely human hands. Without a hint of stone.

Owen’s eyes, when Xanatos finally looked back at them, were filled with laughter. “You _were_ tired,” he said, turning both hands palm up so Xanatos could grasp them more easily. “I’d assumed you would notice much earlier.”

“Owen,” Xanatos said, pressing first one hand, then the other, to his lips. “How?”

“After the chandelier incident, it seemed wise for Alexander to pursue a more advanced lesson in healing,” Owen said. His tone softened. “And...I was ready.”

It was still difficult for Xanatos to say the _I love you_ aloud, though he meant it with their every interaction. He’d thought—hoped—that Owen understood. This gesture—the warm touch of human skin against his, with the iron grip of the past finally melted away—proved how much.

Now it was his turn.

“You know that my goal has always been immortality, Owen,” Xanatos said. It’d been the primary driving force behind all of his actions for at least the past two decades: the ultimate prize, one that he wouldn’t rest until he’d won.

“I’m aware,” Owen replied, with a lightly questioning arch to his eyebrows.

Owen was still, in a technical sense, immortal. The price, though, had been greater than Xanatos had understood from Oberon’s decree—more devastating than Owen had initially been willing to tell him.

Once he’d had passed on all his knowledge to Alex, his current form would become permanent. As fixed as the mountain stones, he’d explained with a sardonic glance down at his permanently clenched fist, and with as much magic or mutability.

Owen would live forever—unless, as a human still subject to all their physical frailties, he didn’t.

“I _will_ achieve that goal, Owen,” Xanatos said, his voice hoarse with the promise. “For all of us: for Fox, and for you. Because I swear to you that as soon as I have eternity in my grasp, I’m going to spend it finding a way to get your power back.”

Xanatos had never expected to fall in love with one human...or one member of the fae...let alone two. It was a future he’d never thought he’d wanted: a life that, ultimately, was far more complete than he’d ever allowed himself to dream.

Love wasn’t a weakness. It was the strength that held Xanatos together, that cemented his will into something tangible, a force so profound that it could break down any barrier: even the gates of Avalon.

Because after all, what was the use of immortality, if you spent it alone?

**Author's Note:**

> No extensive warnings this time, because (a) the first fic in this series had them all in detail (b) they don't apply as much here because Xanatos is more aware of his own relationships...just bad at communicating his feelings. Do let me know if I missed any tags, though!
> 
> To the handful of people who read and liked my first Owen/Xanatos fic...THANK YOU. You are truly wonderful and you made my entire month. I probably wouldn't have written a second one without your encouragement and lovely comments. (Or I might have. Who knows. These two really grabbed me by the feels, and it was fun to explore writing something that was really challenging for me, in a number of ways.)
> 
> I'll be switching back to my other fandoms after this dip into Gargoyles, but I've very much enjoyed taking the plunge with you, and I'll always be up for discussing at length why I love Owen Burnett.
> 
> ALSO if you haven't seen it, [mikkimouse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikkimouse) wrote [an incredible future-fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22967992) that fits within this series (which honestly might not have existed at all without her specific and very kind encouragement). Her fic is beautiful and you should definitely read it! (And encourage her to write the next one, which is Alex-centered.)


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